health eating – Healthy Familieshttps://blogs.ohsu.edu/doernbecher
Pediatric Health News From OHSU Doernbecher Children's HospitalFri, 11 May 2018 22:33:29 +0000en-UShourly1138385601Let’s Get Healthy! Teaching children about healthy food choiceshttps://blogs.ohsu.edu/doernbecher/2014/04/23/lets-get-healthy-teaching-children-about-healthy-food-choices/
Wed, 23 Apr 2014 20:09:24 +0000http://www.ohsu.edu/blogs/doernbecher/?p=4213Continued]]>We’ve learned that good nutrition in early life is critical to children’s health as they grow up and as adults. There are simple steps you can take to help your children eat well:

Eat more fruits, vegetables and whole grains; your children will follow your example.

It turns out that genes aren’t a rigid blueprint for health. Our health is influenced by our genetics and epigenetics. Genetics refers to the DNA we get from our parents (our genome), while epigenetics describes the state of activity of our genes (our epigenome). The latter can be changed in our bodies by the things we are exposed to in the environment and the lifestyle choices that we make. It’s where nature meets nurture. Environmental stimuli, such as nutrition or stress, affect the activity of our genes and, consequently, our health. The effects can be passed down to offspring, shaping the health of future generations.

The Let’s Get Healthy! program at OHSU has developed an interactive game that helps kids, parents and teachers explore this brand new field of science. Tour three game levels about bees, mice and humans to learn about genetics and epigenetics.

In the fourth game level, create an avatar and twin-ize them. You’ll select your diet, sleep, air and stress levels to see how different your avatar and its twin become. Fast forward in time to see how your genomes remain the same, but your epigenomes become different. The game clearly demonstrates how our health can be changed by our everyday choices.

In addition to the game, the website has several printable handouts and tools that you’re welcome to use. Teachers, parents and others can also download free classroom lessons and activities about epigenetics.

By teaching our children about how the choices we make matter to our health, we can help make sure that they and their children grow up as healthy as possible.